Page 22 - TORCH Magazine #14 - July 2019

Israel unveils world's first electric plane
An Israeli company unveiled the world’s first electric plane at the Paris Air Show in June, showing once again that Israel is leading the world in technological innovation.
Eviation's “Alice” is a small prop plane operating entirely on battery power. According to the company, it is the world’s first all-electric commuter aircraft.
The battery takes up 65 percent of the plane’s weight and powers three propellers
at the back of the plane. Alice can carry nine passengers and two crewmen. Its range is currently limited to around 1,000 kilometers (600 miles), but for short distances the company hopes it can cut down operating costs to somewhere around one-fifth of current rates.
“This plane was built first and foremost for the passenger’s flight experience,” Eviation CEO Omer Bar-Yohay said. “We planned and
designed the plane around that.”
The plane’s sleek, out-of-the-ordinary look,
which is dubbed “whale-shaped,” is largely the result of “the need to be very aerodynamically efficient.”
The company says the aircraft is a part of the “third revolution” in aviation following prop planes and jet aircraft. Developers hope with time to expand their range of planes in both size and flight range.
Alice was unveiled at the Paris Air Show, but it still needs several more years of test flights
to receive certification by the Federal Aviation Authority. The company has already received positive feedback and a number of commercial airlines are interested in purchasing planes.
Eviation is aiming to release the plane in 2022, confident that it will be in high demand. “We’ll have a supply issue, not a demand issue,” Omer says.
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